Farmor and Farfar are here, and so is the chilli weather (and Alex is on TV!!!)

It has been a very good last week, with lots of social activities and friends and family time. We have had Kathie and her daughter Lexi (Alexis) over and we had Alex's friend Betchy from Brazil visiting. Farmor and farfar are here now, as well as Uncle Mike (Kathy's brother) and his wife (Tingting) and daughter (Nancy/Butter) from California. We have had a lot of nice dinners and social time together and the children are having so much fun! Tomorrow is the big Thanksgiving dinner at farmor's and farfar's house, which we are all looking forward to! We had a Thanksgiving feast at the preschool last Friday. The boys were dressed up as Pilgrims. Marlee had a lot of fun but Noah seemed like he would rather be home playing than dressing up and celebrating with a lot of people. It is so interesting to see how different they are and to learn more and more about their personalities and interests.

 

I have not learned much about Gabriel's personality yet but he has started to make noises other crying now. More like "talking". And his face smiles a lot, when he is not dissatisfied. I would say that he is mostly dissatisfied when he is awake and he wants to be carried almost all the time (I'm certainly not complaining about him wanting to be carried, and near his mother, it is just a little difficult sometimes to fulfil his need to be carried while taking care of Marlee and Noah as well as the house work at the same time). Tingting has been very good with him and really comforted him and given me good help :-) However, today has been different. Gabriel has been happy almost all day, even in the babysitter/bouncy chair and the baby gym. Wow, that made things so much easier! I got a lot of things done :-) Felicia, Cory and Eli gave us a baby swing and that has greatly improved Gabriel's sleep. It is such a relief!! He still sleeps in his bed at night but it feels good to know that the swing is there when I need it (like this morning :-).

 

Farmor and farfar have taken Marlee and Noah a lot, too, and help us out while they are here and I have spend some time on preparing some advent calendars for Marlee and Noah. Just like I had when I was a kid. I will tell you more later, when they are done. I have also been handy, doing small things around the house, like puttings things on the wall and fixed the door knob on the front door that did not want to work before. It makes me happy to do things like that!

In case anyone has missed it, Alex was in a TV show today, at Russian Today (rt.com) and we all thought that he was going to show up on TV today. I was so disappointed when I did not see him but apparently it will be on TV on Friday, several times. The show is called Crosstalk so if you are interested in watching it go to http://rt.com/on-air/ whenever the Crosstalk is on. I think they show it 8:30am, 2:30pm, 8:30pm and 11:30pm (GMT) on the RT News channel.

We have had some cold weather again and Marlee thought it was too cold in the house. "Only" 68F/20C...

Gabriel in his fabulous swing!

Noah doing draw and glue "homework". He rather ate the pumpkin seeds than glued them on the paper...

Marlee doing a very nice tree to his teacher. With a woman with a beard on it!

My angels!!! Still take up most of the space in our bed...

Smile!

My Pilgrims :-)

Sleeping in the swing

This is what we get to do when pappa comes shopping...

Nice and warm, and rainy. Nothing to complain about!!

Hiding?

Gabriel

Dancing Noah

Making more progress!

It has been some great nice sunny days and now the cold hit us, too. It is all over the country and this morning it was just as cold here as in Skåne, in Sweden. In Madison, where we have our land it was 1C, almost 32F, this morning. Glad that I was not sleeping in our trailer there...

 

You might wonder what great progress we have done? Well Noah has learned to blow his nose. which is surely useful :-) Marlee has however made the most important progress, he is now reading. So far words with 3-4 letters. I will try to put up a video to show this. He is impressive!!! I have also made some progress, maybe not skill- or developmentwise, but "housewise". I got to borrow a sewing machine from a friend and has started to sew things for the house. I want more colors in here. It is so much fun!!!

 

 

A monster truck was parked outside church last Sunday. Noah and Marlee got to see the inside :-)

Went to the beach Sunday afternoon with some friends. Great time!

There were a lot of dead jelly fish on the beach!!!

Noah in the jelly fish pond...

Fell asleep on the couch...

 

 

Could sit like this forever!!!

 

 

My first sewing project!

 

Made an east-to-wash cover for the foot rest

Voila! (still have one pillowcase to sew but ran out of fabric)

 

Good brothers

Last night was my best night so far, I got to sleep 2h in a row, 2 times!!! Gabriel surely knows how to keep his mum busy :-) But it works surprisingly good and when he sleeps on your belly he makes up for it all!

Having fun on the floor while mamma is in the shower

Picknick in the trunk before heading for IKEA

Spent 5h on IKEA with the boys!!! And another Swedish mum with her children.

Got some good stuff at IKEA

Marlee's first question was "Does your's have red hair?"

Passed out in the gym :-)

We had a cousin Owen over for dinner and he turned out to be a great chef!!

This is when you wish that there were no chores to be done

Spending Veterans' day at the playground

Gabriel in his new babysitter/bouncer

Marlee is helping Noah to put on his shorts

And the back too :-)

All three of them getting a bath

Playing with Play-dough

Can you tell who is Marlee, who is Noah and who is Gabriel?

Making progress

After a pretty hard weekend with too little sleep and more dissatisfaction (=crying) that I can handle happily, this week has started out good. I do think that Gabriel has a harder start in life than Marlee and Noah did because he is not a satisfied boy when he is awake and he does not sleep for very long unless he is carried or in the harness on my belly. However, he accepted to use the binkey two days ago and that has seemed to calm him down a little and he seems more satisfied, unless he looses it, which can make him very very upset. Not sure yet what I prefer... Well, so far I see it as progress that he accepts the binkey :-)

 

 

 

 

 

Noah has made some great progress, too. Ever since he started to sleep in a big boy bed, more than a year ago, I have spent about 1-2 hours sitting with him and Marlee until they fall asleep at night. If I am home Noah has not accepted anyone else to sit there while he falls a sleep. I have reasoned that since we have moved around so much lately and slept in so many different places he has needed the security of having me there. Well, lately I have felt that he has gotten older and that I can talk with him about it and I have left the room to return every 5-10 minutes to check on him (Marlee has been able to go to sleep alone for a few years so he has never been an "issue"). The first couple of nights Noah left the room several times each night but he soon learned to stay in their room and now we have had a few nights where both boys have gone to sleep without me in the room and without leaving it. It is so nice to me to have that extra time that I used to spend waiting for Noah to fall asleep. I am so proud of him!!

 

 

Marlee, Noah and I planted some seeds the other night. Noah chose to plant two different colored peppers and Marlee chose to plant Physalis and cucumber. Lots of fun to do some garden work!!It has been rather cold here so we will see if they will grow.

 

 

 

Halloween fun!!

Friday was an ordinary day until the evening when it was time to go out and beg for candy! Both Marlee and Noah had some nice costumes and they managed to collect a ridiculous amount of candy!!!

Noah playing with Gabriel in the baby gym

Enjoying Uncle Mike's pool on Halloween day

They got cold and was warming up in the sun :-)

Getting ready for candy?

Before the candy hunt!

And after.....

Gabriel is trying out his second Halloween outfit thanks to Aunt Jackie and Uncle Doug!

Saturday was really cold and we enjoyed our open fireplace for the first time! :-)

Birthday party game! Break the "bomb" and find a treasure!

Cake time!